


The Rising Son

by annsgopal94



Category: Mahabharata - Vyasa, महाभारत | Mahabharat (TV 2013)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-11 08:12:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2060622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annsgopal94/pseuds/annsgopal94
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Invictus"</p>
<p>Out of the night that covers me,<br/>Black as the Pit from pole to pole,<br/>I thank whatever gods may be<br/>For my unconquerable soul.</p>
<p>In the fell clutch of circumstance<br/>I have not winced nor cried aloud.<br/>Under the bludgeonings of chance<br/>My head is bloody, but unbowed.</p>
<p>Beyond this place of wrath and tears<br/>Looms but the Horror of the shade,<br/>And yet the menace of the years<br/>Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.</p>
<p>It matters not how strait the gate,<br/>How charged with punishments the scroll.<br/>I am the master of my fate:<br/>I am the captain of my soul. <br/>William Ernest Henley</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rising Son

He walked with energy resonating through his tired body. Readjusting his bow over his shoulder, he went on, almost carelessly, his way. Sweat flowed freely down his lithe body and his breath came out in short pants. The salt in his sweat stung at his eyes, but he blinked them away fiercely. His only goal was to reach the Guru Drona’s Ashram before nightfall, and it was already time for the sun to set. His eyes gazed contritely at the sun. He did not think he could offer his daily prayers to the sun that evening. If he stopped then, the benchmark he had set for himself would not be met.  
Furious that he had not walked faster, the young bowman broke into a run. He kept running, increasing his pace whenever he felt sporadic bursts of exhaustion. At long last he saw what looked like a settlement. Running faster than ever, he touched the edge of the settlement when he finally collapsed. Even in a trance he consciously landed on the unoccupied side of his body: the side where his precious bow did not lie. Summoning what little energy he had left, the youth pulled himself up into a sitting position. He had no water on him and his last meal had been several hours before. Clenching his eyes shut, he concentrated on assimilating all his physical power to enable him to go on. A small voice jolted him out of his meditation: “Sir?”  
Opening his eyes, he beheld a boy, but only for a minute; everything dissolved into darkness after that.  
\-----------------------

His eyes fluttered open to meet a pair of sharp but kind eyes. He looked like a Brahmin. The Brahmin spoke, “Pushing yourself is good my son, but oftentimes when the spirit is strong, the body is weak.” Pouring some water into the youth’s mouth the Brahmin gently encouraged him to sit against a wall. The youth realized he was in a cottage, presumably the Brahmin’s. The youth regained his voice and said in a tired, thin voice, “I am training my body to obey my mind sir. My fondest wish is based on bodily strength and mental concentration.”  
The Brahmin smiled broadly, standing in front of the youth, “Your determination is commendable. If it does not offend, may I ask what that powerful wish is?”   
The youth smiled, his exhausted dim face brightening, “It does not offend: my dream is to master the art of archery. Nothing raises my adrenaline as high as an arrow shooting out of my fingers and reaching the point I desire! But for this I need a master. So I am going to the foremost of all tutors: Dronacharya! Only he will understand me!”  
The Brahmin laughed delightedly, “He understands you son! I myself am Drona! Whether I am foremost of anyone or anything, I do not know, but your faith in me is remarkable!”  
The now suddenly active youth broke into such a smile, Drona felt the whole world smiling at him. The boy joint his hands in greeting.  
“What is your name child?” the teacher asked.  
“Vasusena Karna, Acharya,” the youth replied pleasantly.  
“And where are you from?”  
“Hastinapur, Acharya,” the youth spoke, but this time there was wariness in his tone, as though he anticipated the next question and abhorred answering it.   
“Are you a Kshatriya or a Brahmin, my son?”  
Karna that determined young man knelt at Drona’s feet. His body faintly trembled with nervousness.   
“I am neither. I am the son of King Dhritarashtra’s charioteer. I am of humble origins, but as the lotus springs from muddy water, I too want to rise from the ignorance that my caste is often stereotyped with. Guide me in my endeavours, illustrated one!”  
Drona’s excitement died abruptly. He too was in search of a stellar student, and truth be told, this boy seemed as though he was in possession of talent, and no mean amount of it either! However the lines of tradition are so taut, that they ensure an individual has little power to snap them. He could not accept Karna as his student, because even though he could groom this boy into a gem of a man, make him a formidable warrior, gain his revenge against the faithless king of Panchal, no one would forget his origins. He would be forevermore a sutaputra.  
Sighing heavily, he asked the boy, “Do you not know my son, that only the sthulapushpa is used as an offering for the gods? A sutaputra can never be an archer, swordsman or warrior. His hand was not made for the bow, it was made for the whip. And you, boy, must reconcile yourself to what the gods have predestined for you.”  
A strange fire flamed in Karna’s eyes. His back straightened, his jaw hardened and his neck raised his head, as if the head it carried was not made for bending. He looked every inch the Kshatriya Drona claimed he wasn’t.  
“Though the marigold is offered to the gods and they accept it willingly, the divine adorns himself with the lotus that has unclean origins. Only God can know the worth of a man because he does not discriminate as men do. Hear my words Brahmin, I will never give up until I have become the greatest archer on the earth. You have not discouraged me; you have only whetted my hunger for glory.”  
And with that, the golden youth, whose face shone like a thousand suns, picked his bow and left Drona’s dwelling.  
And that mighty teacher was left thinking, “Surely that boy was more than a Kshatriya.”


End file.
